Sunday, July 11, 2010
Sunday, June 27, 2010
My Sister...
A year ago from this month, I was woken from sleep to be told I needed to call my mum. She needed me to pull some hospital strings and find out what was going on with my little sister who had been in a car accident. They were at the emergency area of the hospital but did not really know what was going on. At first I thought it was all a joke, I think I was still half asleep at the time. After speaking to my somewhat hysterical and yet eerily calm mother, I instinctively played things down, she (my sis) was probably in shock and they were trying to get her out of it. Mum said ‘they’re trying to revive her or something...” so off I go explaining how shock works from accidents etc. At the furthest corner of my mind, a small shiver ran down my spine, please lord; don’t let them be actually trying to revive her in the worst way possible.
So I pulled some strings and got through to the doctors station on phone, through bluffing my way through operators who normally wouldn’t put you through to some areas of the hospital. A nurse answered the phone saying the doctors were all busy, but I managed to get them to grab someone, one of the youngest of the doctors there. For most of my short-lived doctor’s career, I have always paid particular attention to how people break bad news- news of shock, sadness, sorrow. Someone has cancer, someone didn’t have long, someone is scarred for life, debilitated forever and someone has died. Too often I’ve seen this sort of hugely intense information thrown at people, unpackaged, receivers unprepared. Not that I expect it to be pampered, just, eased if there is a way possible. The first few lines I got from the doctor, where along the lines of oh my god, it’s you, it’s your sister, oh no, that’s terrible, can you come?.....an opening statement like that can only indicate to one that further bad news is to come...in my head I’m calculating, I’m yet again playing things down, has she broken something, needs a massive operation, are the surgeons there, it’ll all be ok, we’ll stabilise her and fly her out to nz...she’ll be fine...then I ask her for the nitty gritty and the particulars, what exactly is wrong with her?
“Her pupils were fixed and dilated when she was brought in, she had no vitals, but we’ve been resusing her and got a heartbeat back”
For the average person this statement may seem a bit confusing, medical jargon, sure you’ll feel your gut twist at heartbeat, but for me, a medical person, this small statement will haunt me forever. It speaks volumes so intense that these little words had me break down into a hysteria...translation is = she was brought in dead....my husband tried to calm me down but couldn’t, i was a complete mess, demanding to know who was there thinking the best freaken docs had better be there, where is the anaesthetist, where is who...all in all, knowing, that the worst had been and gone for my sister. That we were past the point of no return already, no amount of fiapoko-ing or string pulling was going to bring back my beautiful little sister. It was a battle I was wanting to fight, but had already lost...
In the next week
I cried so much, for my sister -running through the sketchy particulars of her accident, her severe and several injuries which must have caused suffrage in her last moments of life, I cried for the life full of promise ahead of her that had been ripped away, the unborn children she had wanted to have, the big wedding she had dreamed of planning....I cried for my mum, who was in the process of losing her child ( my sister was kept on life support for 2 day s to await relies and friends from overseas) which is a sentence that should never be suffered upon a parent. I cried for my stepfather, who had developed an extremely warm and close relationship with my sister over the last few years, who had raised us with love and care, shared so many laughs and happy moments, with us, but mostly my little sister, who was beside himself at her bedside, in denial of the whole thing, not wanting to give up at all on her. I cried for our own father, who barely gets to see us because he lives overseas, who was here being the rock of the family, holding himself together only shedding an odd tear and a quivering hand while stroking his daughters limp hands by her bedside in a few sparse personal moments. You only had to look at his face to see his pain, he could try to keep it to himself but we could see it, written in the lines of his face ....I cried for my siblings, because I knew like me they were suffering the loss of our sister, our friend, another anatomical part of us who had been there from nappies to graduations... we 4 had grown up, argued, laughed ,cried, shared, hugged, explored ,ventured together for the last 20+ years. ..All of this had now been taken away, put a stop too...how does one make sense of this? This week was one of visitors, of huge outpourings, of pink and purple decorations, of hugs and tears, of friends and family...I had to write a eulogy, which was so difficult as I knew my sister always thought I was a good public speaker, and yet I could not come up with words that could do this sort of farewell justice...so I threw together a few mumbled sentences to bid her goodbye, which I hate, goodbyes...
In the next month
I quit my job. At my sisters funeral my mum mentioned my sisters several degrees and courses she had taken, commenting that all the schoolwork was an excuse to delay actually beginning to work in the big world, and that she thought my sister thought ‘employment’ was something that would just get in the way of her enjoying life. To some degree I have taken this philosophy on too. As my job was hindering just that, enjoying life, which to me was friends and family and happiness. If I can’t have that then what’s the point? In the next month I moped around our family home at Lotopa with my daughter, my infant daughter brought some cheer to a very gloomy home so we stayed. We offered my mum and family our physical support by just being there, eating together, watching telly together, none of us wanted to be alone. We cried in our own rooms, or when people came who could not make it to the funeral to offer there condolences. I felt sad, and angry, and confused, I couldn’t stop imagining the last few minutes of my sister’s life...it hurt so bad. I wrote some poetry, which is therapeutic for me sometimes, and to capture this moment in my life...
In the next year
I developed a slight phobia of being in cars. Especially travelling at more than 25mph. I couldn’t get my head around how fragile the human body is, and how in a split second the human body can be rendered useless and broken all at the mercy of an idiot driver... I panicked when people wanted to carry my daughter in the car instead of put her in a car seat, I sat bolt straight upright hugging my daughter unbeknownst to everyone, like she was wrapped in iron bars, when I didn’t have a car seat and held her myself. I missed my sister like crazy, every outing without her, every revelation she did not get to hear or be part of physically, every family occasion or celebration. I cried in my room, on my bed, in the car anywhere when a memory caught me off-guard. Usually all when no one was looking. I decided that friends and family would always be first in my life from now...no matter what.
My sisters unveiling is days away, and unfortunately I cannot be there as I am preparing to deliver child number two in freezing niusila, but I expect it will be nothing less than the big bash celebrations my mum is so renown for throwing- the best food and decorations and company...it will be a happy occasion, celebrating the beautiful life of my sister, but a sad occasion as well...as it is all still so near and raw and painful. I still don’t think the pain eases, you just learn to cope better, maybe you cry less...but it never stops hurting.
So I pulled some strings and got through to the doctors station on phone, through bluffing my way through operators who normally wouldn’t put you through to some areas of the hospital. A nurse answered the phone saying the doctors were all busy, but I managed to get them to grab someone, one of the youngest of the doctors there. For most of my short-lived doctor’s career, I have always paid particular attention to how people break bad news- news of shock, sadness, sorrow. Someone has cancer, someone didn’t have long, someone is scarred for life, debilitated forever and someone has died. Too often I’ve seen this sort of hugely intense information thrown at people, unpackaged, receivers unprepared. Not that I expect it to be pampered, just, eased if there is a way possible. The first few lines I got from the doctor, where along the lines of oh my god, it’s you, it’s your sister, oh no, that’s terrible, can you come?.....an opening statement like that can only indicate to one that further bad news is to come...in my head I’m calculating, I’m yet again playing things down, has she broken something, needs a massive operation, are the surgeons there, it’ll all be ok, we’ll stabilise her and fly her out to nz...she’ll be fine...then I ask her for the nitty gritty and the particulars, what exactly is wrong with her?
“Her pupils were fixed and dilated when she was brought in, she had no vitals, but we’ve been resusing her and got a heartbeat back”
For the average person this statement may seem a bit confusing, medical jargon, sure you’ll feel your gut twist at heartbeat, but for me, a medical person, this small statement will haunt me forever. It speaks volumes so intense that these little words had me break down into a hysteria...translation is = she was brought in dead....my husband tried to calm me down but couldn’t, i was a complete mess, demanding to know who was there thinking the best freaken docs had better be there, where is the anaesthetist, where is who...all in all, knowing, that the worst had been and gone for my sister. That we were past the point of no return already, no amount of fiapoko-ing or string pulling was going to bring back my beautiful little sister. It was a battle I was wanting to fight, but had already lost...
In the next week
I cried so much, for my sister -running through the sketchy particulars of her accident, her severe and several injuries which must have caused suffrage in her last moments of life, I cried for the life full of promise ahead of her that had been ripped away, the unborn children she had wanted to have, the big wedding she had dreamed of planning....I cried for my mum, who was in the process of losing her child ( my sister was kept on life support for 2 day s to await relies and friends from overseas) which is a sentence that should never be suffered upon a parent. I cried for my stepfather, who had developed an extremely warm and close relationship with my sister over the last few years, who had raised us with love and care, shared so many laughs and happy moments, with us, but mostly my little sister, who was beside himself at her bedside, in denial of the whole thing, not wanting to give up at all on her. I cried for our own father, who barely gets to see us because he lives overseas, who was here being the rock of the family, holding himself together only shedding an odd tear and a quivering hand while stroking his daughters limp hands by her bedside in a few sparse personal moments. You only had to look at his face to see his pain, he could try to keep it to himself but we could see it, written in the lines of his face ....I cried for my siblings, because I knew like me they were suffering the loss of our sister, our friend, another anatomical part of us who had been there from nappies to graduations... we 4 had grown up, argued, laughed ,cried, shared, hugged, explored ,ventured together for the last 20+ years. ..All of this had now been taken away, put a stop too...how does one make sense of this? This week was one of visitors, of huge outpourings, of pink and purple decorations, of hugs and tears, of friends and family...I had to write a eulogy, which was so difficult as I knew my sister always thought I was a good public speaker, and yet I could not come up with words that could do this sort of farewell justice...so I threw together a few mumbled sentences to bid her goodbye, which I hate, goodbyes...
In the next month
I quit my job. At my sisters funeral my mum mentioned my sisters several degrees and courses she had taken, commenting that all the schoolwork was an excuse to delay actually beginning to work in the big world, and that she thought my sister thought ‘employment’ was something that would just get in the way of her enjoying life. To some degree I have taken this philosophy on too. As my job was hindering just that, enjoying life, which to me was friends and family and happiness. If I can’t have that then what’s the point? In the next month I moped around our family home at Lotopa with my daughter, my infant daughter brought some cheer to a very gloomy home so we stayed. We offered my mum and family our physical support by just being there, eating together, watching telly together, none of us wanted to be alone. We cried in our own rooms, or when people came who could not make it to the funeral to offer there condolences. I felt sad, and angry, and confused, I couldn’t stop imagining the last few minutes of my sister’s life...it hurt so bad. I wrote some poetry, which is therapeutic for me sometimes, and to capture this moment in my life...
In the next year
I developed a slight phobia of being in cars. Especially travelling at more than 25mph. I couldn’t get my head around how fragile the human body is, and how in a split second the human body can be rendered useless and broken all at the mercy of an idiot driver... I panicked when people wanted to carry my daughter in the car instead of put her in a car seat, I sat bolt straight upright hugging my daughter unbeknownst to everyone, like she was wrapped in iron bars, when I didn’t have a car seat and held her myself. I missed my sister like crazy, every outing without her, every revelation she did not get to hear or be part of physically, every family occasion or celebration. I cried in my room, on my bed, in the car anywhere when a memory caught me off-guard. Usually all when no one was looking. I decided that friends and family would always be first in my life from now...no matter what.
My sisters unveiling is days away, and unfortunately I cannot be there as I am preparing to deliver child number two in freezing niusila, but I expect it will be nothing less than the big bash celebrations my mum is so renown for throwing- the best food and decorations and company...it will be a happy occasion, celebrating the beautiful life of my sister, but a sad occasion as well...as it is all still so near and raw and painful. I still don’t think the pain eases, you just learn to cope better, maybe you cry less...but it never stops hurting.
Monday, June 07, 2010
My Big Fat Samoan Wedding
Or should I name more appropriately, "a" Big fat Samoan wedding cos it wasn't mines...it was a relies. But I call it mines because I felt like I planned it ...or at least tried to....
So, most of you who know me know I am currently residing in the lovely wop wops we so lovingly call paradise (bush) , AKA, Sakalafai, ,Hawaii, the big island...you choose.It don't matter, its my home and I'm here and it aint that bad despite my sarcasm at times about the bush. A wedding on the big island, for a resident of the big island, of course it not to ever be expected to be anything but Big. Big island, big wedding for big people..its simple logic right??? Anyways, so we just had one of those. At our lovely little hotel/motel. 3 days later I'm still trying to get used to walking again , on my feet, and keeping moi eyes open.
I think it turned out aiiight too. Its hard to know when you are planning and decorating and cooking and bar-ing and security-ing and shooing and greeting and all of the above. It all kind of ends up merging into this one great big bouncing ball of white ribbons and flowers and food and people and you just don't know. But everyone says it was great, who mattered, so that's all that matters really.
the highlights were
-my daughter being da most beautiful (and yes she knew it , such a little actress beaming from her Golden dress and shoes!) flower girl!
-da bridesmaid arriving on a paopao from the oceanfront
- the string band playing on the lawn to greet her and a soga'imiti'd male carried her from da boat to da shore
-da grooms siva coz their are so many pe'as in our family it was a tattoo show and not a siva, even the malus got up and did their stuff...it was o for awesome:)
-da food
-the dancing
-da grooms fathers speech spilling all the beans re:what the bride has to look forward to !(or not!)
-da brides grandfather doing an acapella number on the microphone after a few wines perhaps??
-da food
did I mention the food??hehe
And da lowlights-
well to begin with invitations were still being delivered the morning of the wedding!surprise surprise.
- far too many uninvited showed...from da village, from da matai system, some I don't even know where from
-those particular people almost gave me an aneurysm because they abused our bar which is nothing new. And any stern frowns from us (the providers the servers the forker-outers) were met with laughs of " o kakou e maua loa le avagoa alu loa le akoa le mea!!" (these men were ordering 6 beers each at a time, and stocking them under their table, and passing them around to the back of the building to other crashers who hadn't ventured as far as 'inside' the building.
-people also took our cutlery, our proper expensive plates we were serving the buffet with, home....(!) you dont have to think twice who, but seriously- who does that????some even had the nerve to come up to ME and demand i 'foil' their plate (my glass plate) so they could go home....ahh, if only they could read my mind, it'd be like spitballs of fire hurling their way, so we rescued a few plates, and lost a few dozens...
they also took the woven placemats I had decorating the tables with,
and the bamboo baskets (my bamboo baskets from overseas, good stuff not cheap woven stuff, varnished and everything) home as well...I mean, WHAT THE???
and whole bottles of unopened champagne (uhm meant for the toasts people not your bags!!)
There were infact little party favor gifts on the tables at every seat, but apparently, everything at a big fat Samoan wedding, on the table bar the tablecloth (surprised they didn't take those too) is a party favor!!
So i lost my temper for an hour or two over that but what for? it wasnt going to bring anything back so I shove my losses (one of many) down the toilet and carry on.
what else
the guests arrived to the reception earlier then expected (obviously those who skipped the mass) creating a mad rush of finishing the tables off (snacks and toasting wine werent out) and beer and wine ran out in two sniffs because we had only just started carting the stuff from the storeroom fridge 100mtrs away when they arrived. The reserved seats got filled with the unreserved (vasti) people making for very uncomfortable servers having to (shoo) escort them elsewhere, the MC ended up 4th in line to the microphone..1st,2nd and 3rd got taken over by locals:)
The village youth do not understand the words "go away" and get lost because we kept having to chase them away from the parking lot, and take beer they had somehow got their hands on, off them, only to have them reappear 5 mins later like flies ... if only i were a big muscely man i would have done more then just shoo because they were very cheeky always yelling back "fine! we are leaving now!" in Samoan everytime we did so.
Da dj was an hour and a half late,and came in da shirt he looked like he had been working on his ma'umaga in...
The person we allocated to gaurd the crates of beer outside was caught redhanded drinking and giving away beer to da village!
When the buffet started and all the staff were out serving the line, food was seen being carted out the back door of our kitchen (!) up to now we still dont know how and who!!! dang it...
what I have learnt from this occassion for my book of knowledge regarding future big fat samoan weddings?
-next time all the plates are plastic
-have the wedding during the day so you can see everything- people around the beer outside, plates going out your back door...the darkness does nothing for you and lots for da village
-plastic bowls on tables for snacks
-no fancy placemats or other decorations, lava a palugi pau ga
-prep talk your waiters over which tables to control (ignore) like the ones outside that wernt supposed to be there in the first place, maybe limit 1 vailima per person at a time:) maybe get muscely guys only to serve as well
-count your plates so you know exactly how many people came (we used all our cutlery, plus had to re-wash the ones we collected back from people who had already eaten and re-use.Also , then you'll know how many were taken (stolen) we had 170 chairs and they all got taken,with people standing about chairless..so have no idea how many actually came (this was meant to be a small wedding )
-plenty hands make light work but trust those hands, cause some of those hands actually handed out stuff to friends neighbours etc...
close da bar after so many (4-5) hours, just do it and tell everyone they have to pay after that, good way to break up the crowd
-send da bill to Santa at the north pole when its all done:)
-buy dye for the grey haired effect that is bound to sprout after such an occassion
...dats about all I can think of for now.
can you believe, we have another one of these to look forward to this weekend?? yes, 2 big fat samoan weddings in a row!our relies trying to kill two birds with one stone!! if anything this first one was a good practice run so by this weekend we should all be proffessional at handling the jandal of a big Samoan wedding!!
mm, das all for now, gonna get some shut eye!
So, most of you who know me know I am currently residing in the lovely wop wops we so lovingly call paradise (bush) , AKA, Sakalafai, ,Hawaii, the big island...you choose.It don't matter, its my home and I'm here and it aint that bad despite my sarcasm at times about the bush. A wedding on the big island, for a resident of the big island, of course it not to ever be expected to be anything but Big. Big island, big wedding for big people..its simple logic right??? Anyways, so we just had one of those. At our lovely little hotel/motel. 3 days later I'm still trying to get used to walking again , on my feet, and keeping moi eyes open.
I think it turned out aiiight too. Its hard to know when you are planning and decorating and cooking and bar-ing and security-ing and shooing and greeting and all of the above. It all kind of ends up merging into this one great big bouncing ball of white ribbons and flowers and food and people and you just don't know. But everyone says it was great, who mattered, so that's all that matters really.
the highlights were
-my daughter being da most beautiful (and yes she knew it , such a little actress beaming from her Golden dress and shoes!) flower girl!
-da bridesmaid arriving on a paopao from the oceanfront
- the string band playing on the lawn to greet her and a soga'imiti'd male carried her from da boat to da shore
-da grooms siva coz their are so many pe'as in our family it was a tattoo show and not a siva, even the malus got up and did their stuff...it was o for awesome:)
-da food
-the dancing
-da grooms fathers speech spilling all the beans re:what the bride has to look forward to !(or not!)
-da brides grandfather doing an acapella number on the microphone after a few wines perhaps??
-da food
did I mention the food??hehe
And da lowlights-
well to begin with invitations were still being delivered the morning of the wedding!surprise surprise.
- far too many uninvited showed...from da village, from da matai system, some I don't even know where from
-those particular people almost gave me an aneurysm because they abused our bar which is nothing new. And any stern frowns from us (the providers the servers the forker-outers) were met with laughs of " o kakou e maua loa le avagoa alu loa le akoa le mea!!" (these men were ordering 6 beers each at a time, and stocking them under their table, and passing them around to the back of the building to other crashers who hadn't ventured as far as 'inside' the building.
-people also took our cutlery, our proper expensive plates we were serving the buffet with, home....(!) you dont have to think twice who, but seriously- who does that????some even had the nerve to come up to ME and demand i 'foil' their plate (my glass plate) so they could go home....ahh, if only they could read my mind, it'd be like spitballs of fire hurling their way, so we rescued a few plates, and lost a few dozens...
they also took the woven placemats I had decorating the tables with,
and the bamboo baskets (my bamboo baskets from overseas, good stuff not cheap woven stuff, varnished and everything) home as well...I mean, WHAT THE???
and whole bottles of unopened champagne (uhm meant for the toasts people not your bags!!)
There were infact little party favor gifts on the tables at every seat, but apparently, everything at a big fat Samoan wedding, on the table bar the tablecloth (surprised they didn't take those too) is a party favor!!
So i lost my temper for an hour or two over that but what for? it wasnt going to bring anything back so I shove my losses (one of many) down the toilet and carry on.
what else
the guests arrived to the reception earlier then expected (obviously those who skipped the mass) creating a mad rush of finishing the tables off (snacks and toasting wine werent out) and beer and wine ran out in two sniffs because we had only just started carting the stuff from the storeroom fridge 100mtrs away when they arrived. The reserved seats got filled with the unreserved (vasti) people making for very uncomfortable servers having to (shoo) escort them elsewhere, the MC ended up 4th in line to the microphone..1st,2nd and 3rd got taken over by locals:)
The village youth do not understand the words "go away" and get lost because we kept having to chase them away from the parking lot, and take beer they had somehow got their hands on, off them, only to have them reappear 5 mins later like flies ... if only i were a big muscely man i would have done more then just shoo because they were very cheeky always yelling back "fine! we are leaving now!" in Samoan everytime we did so.
Da dj was an hour and a half late,and came in da shirt he looked like he had been working on his ma'umaga in...
The person we allocated to gaurd the crates of beer outside was caught redhanded drinking and giving away beer to da village!
When the buffet started and all the staff were out serving the line, food was seen being carted out the back door of our kitchen (!) up to now we still dont know how and who!!! dang it...
what I have learnt from this occassion for my book of knowledge regarding future big fat samoan weddings?
-next time all the plates are plastic
-have the wedding during the day so you can see everything- people around the beer outside, plates going out your back door...the darkness does nothing for you and lots for da village
-plastic bowls on tables for snacks
-no fancy placemats or other decorations, lava a palugi pau ga
-prep talk your waiters over which tables to control (ignore) like the ones outside that wernt supposed to be there in the first place, maybe limit 1 vailima per person at a time:) maybe get muscely guys only to serve as well
-count your plates so you know exactly how many people came (we used all our cutlery, plus had to re-wash the ones we collected back from people who had already eaten and re-use.Also , then you'll know how many were taken (stolen) we had 170 chairs and they all got taken,with people standing about chairless..so have no idea how many actually came (this was meant to be a small wedding )
-plenty hands make light work but trust those hands, cause some of those hands actually handed out stuff to friends neighbours etc...
close da bar after so many (4-5) hours, just do it and tell everyone they have to pay after that, good way to break up the crowd
-send da bill to Santa at the north pole when its all done:)
-buy dye for the grey haired effect that is bound to sprout after such an occassion
...dats about all I can think of for now.
can you believe, we have another one of these to look forward to this weekend?? yes, 2 big fat samoan weddings in a row!our relies trying to kill two birds with one stone!! if anything this first one was a good practice run so by this weekend we should all be proffessional at handling the jandal of a big Samoan wedding!!
mm, das all for now, gonna get some shut eye!
Wednesday, May 05, 2010
last few days
In the last few days, my belly has expanded even further thanks to the little she or he (still dont know) who is growing a mile a minute in there:)
I have hunted the whole of Savaii up and down for Root beer (craving ) There are only 1 or 2 stores on the entire island that have a decent variety sporadically throughout the year, and they are all out of root beer, they did however have apple flavoured fizzy tea from somewhere in Kansas or something....something different for a change I guess!!
I have been holding interviews for new staff at the hotel cos just when we thought we had trained our current lot to the point of dependability and reliability, number ones family relocated to Apia (sorry I have to go) number 2 is on indefinite maternity leave (kinda saw that coming) and number 3s mother is "very ill" overseas and has to leave immediately...leaving me with nada in the restaurant this week
( heres me hoping that business remains quiet for once otherwise I am the cook the receptionist the waitress hahahaha how terrible would that look ! (just while the hubby is In Apia - today- back tonight)) Anyways, so interviews are always entertaining if anything (I know, thats almost mean but seriously you should come try it)
So the ad said , vacancy for a person to work in a hotel , duties bla bla, you must be 21-35yrs, you must speak good english, past experience a bonus but not absolute, you must be able to work weekend and evening shifts.
So interview-ee number 1) can you answer this question in english "what time does you church start and is it ok for me to come to the service??"- reply- blank stare
again ök , what time does church start- reply - blank stare
ok- then an admission that they cant speak english. 70% of our interview-ees did this, they can speak some but they are sooo terribly shy and afraid and embarressed re- broken english (which really is not an abosolute problem, as long as you can give one word answers and appear helpful you are ok)but its like they can even try, i try to encourage them to attempt because its not as hard as they think, but again, blank stare, I can just see a guest asking a question to one of our staff and they get the locked up wide eyed frozen stare reply, nice, welcome to Savaii!
interview-ee number 2- can you work weekend shifts- well actually no laga o aú le lead singer number 1 i le makou aufaipese i le loku....ok
number 3- had his mother phone, she said her son was 21yrs old spoke good english was an outgoing person who would be an asset to our business- was slightly annoyed with the mum ringing to apply but claims her son was somewhere else and had no credit when he heard the ad so 'please call me-d"his mum to please ring us from her phone and secure an interview. Person that showed up was a 45yr old fafafine who upon questioning in english "how do I catch a bus into town" went "BUS?!....ahhhhhh"and then started shaking nervously while frozen and wideeyed for 10 minutes (really uncomfortable) and then cried
i mean seriously, its like no one heard the requirements asked for in the ad, age, english, etc.... one girl who spoke no english ( or so she claimed) never had a job before, looked presentable enough, when asked what sort of work she would think suited her at our hotel (ie cleaning, serving etc) answered, in Samoan, "well actually I dont know if anything would because I am 3 months pregnant"....What the????? so are you applying for a job or what?? sounds to me like you are saying you cant work but you are here????ehhhhh, anyways, people here seriously need some advice on how to apply for a job. most people think that because they rang, they 'got'the job. then when they get here and get interviewed and asked about how they would contribute to the business, all say, i really need money so just give me anything to do ....thats it. shaminbadash.
anyways, we've chosen 2 of the lot and much to their dismay and doing training today (they look like nervous kids sitting exams) but so far all going good.
thought i would share my 2 cents for the day from my rural location!!
just another day in paradise!
I have hunted the whole of Savaii up and down for Root beer (craving ) There are only 1 or 2 stores on the entire island that have a decent variety sporadically throughout the year, and they are all out of root beer, they did however have apple flavoured fizzy tea from somewhere in Kansas or something....something different for a change I guess!!
I have been holding interviews for new staff at the hotel cos just when we thought we had trained our current lot to the point of dependability and reliability, number ones family relocated to Apia (sorry I have to go) number 2 is on indefinite maternity leave (kinda saw that coming) and number 3s mother is "very ill" overseas and has to leave immediately...leaving me with nada in the restaurant this week
( heres me hoping that business remains quiet for once otherwise I am the cook the receptionist the waitress hahahaha how terrible would that look ! (just while the hubby is In Apia - today- back tonight)) Anyways, so interviews are always entertaining if anything (I know, thats almost mean but seriously you should come try it)
So the ad said , vacancy for a person to work in a hotel , duties bla bla, you must be 21-35yrs, you must speak good english, past experience a bonus but not absolute, you must be able to work weekend and evening shifts.
So interview-ee number 1) can you answer this question in english "what time does you church start and is it ok for me to come to the service??"- reply- blank stare
again ök , what time does church start- reply - blank stare
ok- then an admission that they cant speak english. 70% of our interview-ees did this, they can speak some but they are sooo terribly shy and afraid and embarressed re- broken english (which really is not an abosolute problem, as long as you can give one word answers and appear helpful you are ok)but its like they can even try, i try to encourage them to attempt because its not as hard as they think, but again, blank stare, I can just see a guest asking a question to one of our staff and they get the locked up wide eyed frozen stare reply, nice, welcome to Savaii!
interview-ee number 2- can you work weekend shifts- well actually no laga o aú le lead singer number 1 i le makou aufaipese i le loku....ok
number 3- had his mother phone, she said her son was 21yrs old spoke good english was an outgoing person who would be an asset to our business- was slightly annoyed with the mum ringing to apply but claims her son was somewhere else and had no credit when he heard the ad so 'please call me-d"his mum to please ring us from her phone and secure an interview. Person that showed up was a 45yr old fafafine who upon questioning in english "how do I catch a bus into town" went "BUS?!....ahhhhhh"and then started shaking nervously while frozen and wideeyed for 10 minutes (really uncomfortable) and then cried
i mean seriously, its like no one heard the requirements asked for in the ad, age, english, etc.... one girl who spoke no english ( or so she claimed) never had a job before, looked presentable enough, when asked what sort of work she would think suited her at our hotel (ie cleaning, serving etc) answered, in Samoan, "well actually I dont know if anything would because I am 3 months pregnant"....What the????? so are you applying for a job or what?? sounds to me like you are saying you cant work but you are here????ehhhhh, anyways, people here seriously need some advice on how to apply for a job. most people think that because they rang, they 'got'the job. then when they get here and get interviewed and asked about how they would contribute to the business, all say, i really need money so just give me anything to do ....thats it. shaminbadash.
anyways, we've chosen 2 of the lot and much to their dismay and doing training today (they look like nervous kids sitting exams) but so far all going good.
thought i would share my 2 cents for the day from my rural location!!
just another day in paradise!
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